


I'm not a user, I'm a peripheral

by The_Exile



Category: Phantasy Star II
Genre: Community: tic_tac_woe, Doom, Gen, mining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 04:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14488374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: 'You're over-mining this planet...'





	I'm not a user, I'm a peripheral

**Author's Note:**

> for fill 'Planetary resources exhausted'

"You're over-mining this planet, and we are not going to let this stand," the native Dezolisian repeated firmly. He was some sort of religious leader, apparently, which made him one of the highest authorities it was possible for a Palman to ever get an audience with. You could tell he was a higher-up because his hat was fancy and tall. Actually, they could have been a she, or for all the Director of Skure knew, the Dezolisians could do gender completely differently. They were kinda reptilian-looking with their leathery green skin and tall, gaunt postures with spindly limbs, and no Palman had ever been allowed to see their babies or their eggs or whatever they had. They showed off their guns readily enough though, large things for hunting equally large predators on the hellish ice world. Their technology wasn't even that out of date and could definitely do the job. They could use Techniques too, a lot better than he could. He'd seen it happen.

Surrounded, here in the middle of a hostile landscape they understood way better than him, he had to be careful what he said.

"You think we're stupid or primitive because we won't connect up to Mother Brain. Our own technology works well enough, and we at least know where it came from. Your connection up here is bad, anyway, isn't it? Or can't you say anything like that, in case it gets seen as a complaint about Mother Brain?" those black shining eyes, buried deeply in large sockets, did not blink as they bored into him. 

"Look, I don't have the authority to stop the machines..."

"Who does? Do any of you? Are you saying you have nobody who can stop something as big and dangerous as a planetary extraction operation. What if someone fell into the pit?"

"There are rails, the machines stop automatically if there's danger. The safety mechanisms are top of the range..."

"So says Mother Brain. Have you ever seen their controls? Do you even know where to go if something went wrong?" asked the hierophant, crossing his legs and peering further into the man's eyes, "Because something already is going wrong. The planet you already have settlements on can't support the rate you're mining. Not with the size and speed of your extractors, with how deep you're trying to drill. We have a pretty good idea of how much Laconia there is in the mountains. We mine for it ourselves, just not insanely. Assuming you don't flood your facility with lava, you're going to deplete the Laconia and everything else you need to survive in the next decade, and destroy most of your food sources in the process. Now, even if you don't give a damn about us, or about your third planet, any more..."

"Hey, that's not true! Algol's always been a unified solar system, and if you guys hadn't refused to join our network..."

"Mother Brain," said the Dezolisian, "Is not from Algol, and you know it. She is not invited. And She is certainly not invited to mine out our planet. Where do you think She will decide to go for supplies when she has finished with Dezolis, by the way?"

"We're building up resources for an expedition further outside Algol."

"Of course," he sighed, "Of course she wants you to leave. Well, leave, then, but do not take us with you."

"Does that mean we can't come to an agreement?"

"Shut down the machines. Then we talk again."

"I already told you, I can't if I wanted to!"

"Then you are no longer the ones in charge," he said, "So you will bring me the ones in charge, and prove to me that you even have enough control of your lives enough to show me the ones who control you. Otherwise, I can no longer talk to you as though you were people."

We're not people any more, we're peripherals of the machine. he remembered the protestors back home, the crazy anti-machine cultists with their placards. The security androids had dispersed them very efficiently.


End file.
